Trusting the caller, Kelle, who works in timber sales and runs a body-piercing business from her home in Ashford, transferred about £580 to what she believed was a secure account.

But she was then told the hacker had also attempted to take out a loan in her name.

She says she was told if she went through the loan application process, she could cancel their request herself, but a lump sum of £6,000 dropped into her account instead.

Suddenly feeling “weird”, she researched how someone can tell whether they are on the phone to Monzo - which is indicated in the banking app through the Call Status tool.

“I asked ‘are you sure you’re Monzo?’ and they hung up,” she said.

Panicked, Kelle realised she had been speaking with a scammer, had lost the money she transferred and had taken out a loan in her name for the maximum amount.

She said she immediately contacted Monzo and her other banks to make them aware of what had happened on March 8 last year.

“I went straight to Monzo and said ‘I don’t want this loan, you’re more than welcome to go and take it out of my account and clear it’,” she said.

Kelle said Monzo told her the case would be handed over to the bank’s fraud department and investigated.

She said two weeks passed and she was getting “worried” as the £6,000 loan was still sitting in her account.

“I went back to Monzo constantly to ask what was going on, I didn’t know what was happening,” she said.

“Eventually, they found I was liable for the loan and wanted me to make repayments.

“It was £150 a month and there was interest on the loan – I felt helpless.”

Kelle said she sought external advice from ActionFraud, the National Debtline, and the Financial Ombudsman Service.

“I was advised not to pay the loan back at all because once I pay for it, I’m liable for it,” she said.

As Kelle had technically missed repayments on the loan, she said her credit score plummeted from 995 to 637, which was “really stressful”.

On May 27, however, Monzo were able to rectify the issue and Kelle was told she could return the money. The loan was closed and her credit file was updated.

Kelle said she also received £890 from Monzo in total – which included the money she had been scammed out of, refunds in interest on the loan and a small fee of compensation.

Sharing her story now in the hope it warns others to be aware of such scams, she said: “I’m glad things were resolved. I didn’t expect to get any money back.

“The scariest part of the scam is that they knew were I lived, they knew everything in my account – you feel vulnerable.

“It completely disarmed me that they were able to confirm my personal details – I felt like I could trust them.

“It was so stressful the day it happened, I remember just sitting and sobbing my eyes out.

“Everyone falls for a scam at some point and you expect it to be dealt with quite quickly - that just was not the case for what happened here.

“I felt let down, alone and scared as I was going up against a big corporation.”

A spokesperson for Monzo said: “We’re sorry our customer fell victim to impersonation fraud in March last year.

“Luckily, they used our Call Status tool to identify that they were not on the phone to Monzo, preventing them from losing a larger amount to the scam.

“At the time we cancelled the loan they were tricked into applying for, paid back the interest and prevented any impact to their credit score.

“We recognise we should have resolved this quicker, and we apologise for any additional stress caused because of this.”